Nothing Out of the Ordinary
by Nyx Midnight
Summary: -Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne- Shura. Isamu. Chiaki. There is nothing out of the ordinary about them. Right? Gen.


**Nothing Out of the Ordinary**

There is nothing out of the ordinary about them.

The three of them are average students, Chiaki a little more brilliant, though, as her parents have more money to pour into private classes. They met back in grade school, before Isamu took to wearing a hat as often as he could but after Shura discovered his love of shorts. Class photos of years past keep a record of their friendship and the varying length of Chiaki's hair.

Every weekday, they put on their uniforms, take the train and go to school. They eat lunch together, often joined by others. They study hard, most of the time. They chat on their cells a lot, so they can meet and chat face to face. They play games when they have time, and sometimes when they don't, Isamu and Shura more than Chiaki.

They play sports, even if Isamu doesn't like to get all sweaty. On the weekend, sometimes they catch up on homework, but often, they just hang out. They go to karaoke even if Shura's singing voice could kill a man at 50 paces and Isamu's dancing looks more like a seizure than anything else. They run up and down the shopping district even if they always end up arguing about what clothes are "in" and "out". They have happy days, and bad days. They laugh and they cry together, young and alive.

There is nothing out of the ordinary about them.

Sometimes, Isamu dreams he is standing in a desert. A hot sun glares down at him mercilessly, up in a sky so clear it looks white around the sun. The horizon is blurred, dancing in the scorching heat. As far as the eye can see, there is nothing but pure, blond sand. It's everywhere, even in the air. He feels it under his feet, between his toes, striking his bare chest with the wind.

At times, he even feels it on his tongue, his nose, his throat. It's everywhere; there is no escaping it. The heated air feels stuffy and hard to breathe. The land is devoid of any living soul except him. Still, somehow, he feels good. He is not afraid. On the contrary. He feels like himself at last. He feels at home.

Sometimes, Chiaki dreams she is in a ring. The spotlights warm the sweat glistening on her skin, and the cheers of the crowd fill the air, resonating in her ears, filling her with joy. Her opponent is fierce, and is twice her size, but she is not afraid. She is dominating him completely, in control and powerful, not worrying for a second about her tousled hair tied in a messy ponytail, her chipped nail polish, or how she looks in these shorts.

When she lands a final, fatal blow on her adversary, the crowd goes wild, but the blood beating in her ears drowns them out. Every one of her muscles is buzzing with adrenaline. Normally, the sight of blood makes her ill at ease, but not now. Now, in that moment, the clear blood blooms on the white ring like a beautiful flower, an homage to her triumph. She throws her head back and howls in victory. She has never felt more alive.

Sometimes, Shu dreams he is standing on top of the tallest building in all of Tokyo. Night has wrapped her coat of darkness around the city, but the Tokyo lights glitter and shine like a fabulous treasure chest. The wind blows against his bare back, and tousles his short hair, but he does not feel cold.

He looks down at the city at his feet, and suddenly he is high in the air, standing on the emptiness between him and Tokyo, between him and all of Japan, between him and the world. It doesn't even occur to him that he could fall. He is too taken by the beauty, the perfection of the city at night.

At those times, he feels that the city is his for the taking. No, even more than that. At that precise moment, he feels like the whole world could be his. He just needs to reach down and take it, pick it like a big, red, juicy apple on a beautiful tree, and devour it whole. Nobody would be able to stop him. Yes, at those times, he feels the entire world belongs to him.

There is nothing out of the ordinary about them.

When morning comes, they never think much of these dreams. It's better to dream about that than to dream about finding themselves in class in their underwear, or even worse, to dream about facing the hardest test of their life without having studied or attended the class at all, ever.

The three of them meet up on their way to school as usual, passing countless shrines and temples. They take the same train as usual. They talk together and laugh. They help Shura finish waking up.

Chiaki checks her reflection in the glass-covered advertisements on the walls to see if her uniform is still looking right. Isamu keeps telling her it does, but Chiaki stopped believing him since that one time he told her it did and it was not true. Shura often tries to steal Isamu's "awful" hat, to trash it, and Isamu often tries to headlock Shu, to teach him a lesson, making Chiaki roll her eyes at their childish behaviour. But they always stick together.

They make plans for the future, silly plans, grandiose plans, so many plans they will never have enough of one life to accomplish them all. They want to be rich. They want to be famous. They want to be rock stars and tour the world; they want to be movie stars and take over Hollywood. They want to find love, the kind of love that lasts eternally, but doesn't end tragically. They want to stay best friends forever and ever, no matter what.

There is nothing out of the ordinary about them.

Nothing at all.


End file.
